Ghana News Agency

Friday 7th September, 2018

By Hafsa
Obeng, GNA
Accra, Sept. 7, GNA – The Mental Health
Authority, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), on
Thursday launched the “fight against epilepsy initiative” report, in Accra.
The report is to raise awareness and educate
the general public on the true facts about epilepsy and the urgent need for
improved treatment, better care and greater investment in rese

By Hafsa
Obeng, GNA

Accra, Sept. 7, GNA – The Mental Health
Authority, in collaboration with the World Health Organisation (WHO), on
Thursday launched the “fight against epilepsy initiative” report, in Accra.

The report is to raise awareness and educate
the general public on the true facts about epilepsy and the urgent need for
improved treatment, better care and greater investment in research.

It also seeks to create a platform for people
with epilepsy to share their experiences and stories with the national and
ultimately a global audience and also to call for people to advocate for
appropriate legislation that would guarantee human rights of people with
epilepsy and encourage them to live to their fullest potential.

Mr Kinsley Aboagye Jedu, Deputy Minister of
Health, said epilepsy is a chronic non-communicable disease that affects all
people of all ages across the world, and in Ghana there is an estimated 270,000
person living with it.

He said unfortunately even though treatment
for the condition is available, about 75 per cent of people in low and middle
income countries do not receive it, thus making it one of the health conditions
of the world with treatment gabs.

He said Ghana is one of the four demonstration
project countries where the WHO is piloting the programme to bring any
detection and treatment services closer to where people within live and help
develop models of care that can be used to bridge the treatment gab in
epilepsy.

Mr Jedu said the report contains the successes
achieved in the fight against epilepsy initiative in spite of the teaming
challenges the ministry and the preventive agencies in Ghana are faced with.

He noted that 2,700 new cases of people living
with epilepsy were diagnosed and treated during the project, and it further
recorded significant improvement in the quality of life of over three quarters
of patients under the project.

The report also outlines efforts made to
integrate epilepsy cases in primary health care in Ghana and ensure community
participation.

Over the five-year period, 29 specialists,
including neurologists and psychiatrists, were trained to be trainers and
supervisors in epilepsy care management.

Additional 690 specialists primary health care
providers were also trained to diagnose and treat epilepsy and also 770
community health workers and volunteers were trained to detect possible cases
of epilepsy, to assist in acute seizure episodes and to refer cases for better
medical care.

The project confirmed that epilepsy care can
be effectively inculcated into the primary health care in low income countries
with increased service coverage from 14.5 per cent to 38.3 per cent, at the end
of the project, and people with epilepsy reporting significant improvement in
their quality of life.

Ghana s fight against epilepsy initiative
demonstrates that there are simple cost effective ways to treat epilepsy with
little resources at community level.

The Deputy Minister commended the project team
for their commitment to the project and the confidence they have given the
nation to reduce gabs in epilepsy treatment and extend its management to other
countries, and commended the WHO and DFID for supporting the project, which
would significantly improve access to high quality care to reduce the huge gab
in its treatment.

Dr Owen Kaluwa, WHO, Country representative to
Ghana said epilepsy is the most common serious brain disorder worldwide, and
despite being one of the world’s oldest known medical conditions, public fear
and misunderstanding about it persists, making people reluctant to talk about
it.

He said the reluctance leads to lives lived in
the shadows, discrimination at workplaces and communities, and lack of funding
for new therapies and research, adding that, for such people, the misconception
and discrimination can be more difficult to overcome than the seizures
themselves.

He said about 50 million people worldwide have
epilepsy and most of them live in resource poor regions, saying that, every
year 2.4 million people are diagnosed with it, and in Ghana, it is estimated
that it affects about one to two per cent of the population.

Dr Kaluwa noted that epilepsy can easily and
affordably be treated with inexpensive daily medication that cost as little as
US$ 5 per year and a majority of people affected can live normal lives when
they get treatment.

“Epilepsy can be defeated if all stakeholders,
including the government and communities put their efforts together to confront
it,” he said.

He commended the Ghana Epilepsy Project team
for their commitment towards the success of the project, which also
demonstrates the feasibility of extending the management of epilepsy from pilot
sites to the entire country.

He called on government to ensure to integrate
epilepsy management into primary healthcare and promote community involvement
in the management and social integration of people living with epilepsy, and
also to allocate more resources for its care and treatment.

Dr Kaluwa encouraged the ministry to scale up
the initiative to other regions and districts and improve the availability of
antiepileptic medicines, which was a major challenge during the project
implementation to those who require them.

Dr Akwesi Osei, Chief Executive Officer,
Mental Health Authority, said the initiative was established in four countries
worldwide and Ghana was lucky to have been chosen as one of the countries to
have it.

He said the initiative started in 2012 and
ended in 2017, and they intend to wage a war on epilepsy to the extent of
eliminating or reducing its prevalence to the barest minimum.

He said in Ghana at the onset of the
initiative, treatment gap was about 85 per cent, meaning 85 per cent of people
who had epilepsy were not getting access to proper care, but the initiative has
reduced it to about 60 per cent.

“We want to affirm that epilepsy is not a
mental illness and anybody with epilepsy is not mad and does not necessarily
have mental illness,” he said.